


Favorite Things

by Nybbas



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Barrow-downs, Canon Continuation, Fourth Age, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:14:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22094695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nybbas/pseuds/Nybbas
Summary: The Shire has been set right after the War of the Ring. Fredegar Bolger, once known as Fatty, has recovered from his torture in the Lockholes and now serves as a captain of the Bounders, defending the  borders from incursions. When he discovers evidence of a coming invasion, he goes on a daring mission outside of the Shire to ascertain the source of a dark conspiracy.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	Favorite Things

**The Brandywine River**

The mists curled and thickened as the night grew deeper and the further shores of the Brandywine could no longer be seen. To the right, the river cast its arms around the low dark shape of Girdley Island, running swiftly in the deep channel between the island and the shoreline. Six hobbits crouched behind a thicket of birches, watching the river. Above the island, white flecks of foam could still be seen marking the shallows, the one place north of the Brandywine Bridge where the river could be crossed. Above the rush of water over the shallows, a faint clinking could be heard.

“I wish the Captain were back already,” whispered one of the hobbits. Dressed in the dark clothing and leather jerkins of the Bounders, the six hobbits also carried bows, staves and spears. After the great war, the lives of most of the inhabitants of the Shire had returned to normal, but the job of the Bounders, the hobbits who “beat the bounds” and maintained the borders of the Shire, had become more difficult than ever. 

Men fleeing from the south, sometimes just individuals and sometimes organized companies, attempted to cross into the Shire almost every day. Frodo Baggins, one of the famous Travellers returned from the war, had reorganized the Bounders to provide aid--food and sometimes temporary shelter--for the poor bodies, often with children, running from the war. But the Bounders had also been provided weapons and training from Peregrine Took and Meriadoc Brandybuck, for many of those men were ruffians and former soldiers from Isengard and Dunland, and clashes with armed men were all too frequent and occasionally tragic. 

“The Captain is back,” came a voice, deeper than is normal for a hobbit and husky as well. A black shape stepped into the middle of the hobbits, startling them. Hobbits can go very quietly, but the Captain, through long practice, moved silently. The moonlight illuminated his face for a moment. It was lean and hard, his cheeks drawn and somewhat hollow. He was clad in dark brown; his black cloak was thrown back and the grey streaks in his curly brown hair--unexpected in one so young--could be seen. A whitish puckered scar ran from his ear down below his jaw line. 

“Master Fredegar!” said Hob, the leader of the Bounder watch. “Are they coming across tonight?” Fredegar Bolger, Captain of the East Farthing Bounders, nodded. “There are eight of them, as far as I can tell,” he said in a low voice. “They have at least one baggage horse, but they aren’t riding. At least one has a sword.” Fredegar brushed pine needles from his hair and clothing, the results of his climb to the top of a tall pine tree overlooking the river, from which the keen-sighted could observe the landscape for more than a mile into the wild lands beyond the Shire. 

Fredegar Bolger had been the Captain of the East Farthing Bounders for five years, after his recovery from his torture and neglect in the Lockholes in Michel Delving, where he spent almost nine months in a cell without light or fresh air. Known as “Fatty” in his youth, Fredegar had already lost most of his extra weight while leading a band of resistance fighters against Lotho’s Men, but his time in the Lockholes had been severe. Lotho had no use for him as a friend of Frodo’s and had let the Men do what they would. Fredegar’s band had killed several of the ruffians, so they had no reason for restraint. When Fredegar was carried out of the Lockholes in November of 1419, he was unable to walk or speak above a whisper. The marks and scars of many beatings decorated his back and arms. The Men had delighted in burning the hair off his feet, blistering his skin again and again. 

Fredegar rebuilt his strength at home, but he did not return to his easy-living ways. He trained his muscles, learned to use weapons, and built his endurance through a disciplined training regiment. His scarred body remained lean, but the hard muscle showed under his skin. Wiry black hair grew back on his feet, replacing the soft brown that he had lost. He joined the Bounders as a scout and was quickly promoted to captain. Though Peregrin Took and Meriadoc Brandybuck remained at the head of the Hobbitry-in-arms and would occasionally lead their forces against large bands of Men who attempted to cross into the Shire, it was the Bounders who manned the front lines every day and every night. 

A faint splashing could be heard, and all the hobbits tensed. “Wait for them to reach this bank,” murmured the Captain. “Hob, Tom: string your bows. This bunch looks dangerous.” Dark shapes proceeding in a line appeared in the river, wading almost up to their waists in the hurrying water. 

When the lead figure was within six feet of the near bank, Fredegar stood up and, pointing his spear at the man, said in a commanding voice.”Halt! You are crossing the border of the Shire and you may not enter!” The figures stopped. “Shire, you say?” growled the leader. “ The Shire,” answered Fredegar, “You are not welcome here. If you need food, we can provide it, but you must turn back.” Wordlessly, the leader raised his left hand, palm outward, for heartbeat. He dropped it quickly and a blade appeared in his right hand, gleaming in the moonlight. The troop of men rushed the bank.

The Bounders all had experienced this kind of situation before. Two bows twanged and two men fell back into the river, arrows protruding from their chests. Spear thrusts from the bank drove the others back. Only the leader managed to scramble up the bank. His short sword shone menacingly with a pale cold light and the hobbits stepped back, cowering. He laughed and brought the sword down upon Hob. Hob leapt aside, but the sword bit into his thigh and he fell, rolling in agony. The man turned to the river and raised the sword to encourage his companions, but at that moment Fredegar’s spear thrust passed through him from behind. He staggered and fell. The remaining men could be heard splashing back through the river, and then the only sound was a low keening as the wounded Hob writhed on the ground. 

Fredegar hastened to Hob and examined the wound. It was not deep, but the edges of the cut were ragged. Fredegar pressed a cloth to the wound to slow the bleeding and then began to bind it. “Hob Hayward!” he called. “Listen to me! Be still and we will take you to safety.” But the hobbit did not seem to hear him, he was seized with shuddering. “Was the blade poisoned?” wondered Fredegar, “Such a sword stroke should not cause this reaction!” He stooped to find the blade at the edge of the water where it had been dropped by the leader of the ruffians. The blade still shone with its own light--a pale, sickly yellow--but even as he watched the light dimmed and faded. The hilt was curiously carved with images delicate and yet horrible. He gingerly picked up the sword, careful to avoid any contact with the blade. He could see no telltale poison, but, if the stories of his friends were true, he recognized this blade: it was a Morgul sword.

He heard thrashing and cries in the water and turned to see that two of his troop had pulled a man out of the water. The hobbit arrow had passed through his shoulder, but he was alive. “Draw the arrow and staunch the wound,” Fredegar commanded, “but search him and bind his legs also. I want to talk with him.”

Fredegar turned his attention again to Hob, who was quieter now but still clearly in great pain. His eyes were glazed and he seemed only to half-hear Fredegar’s words. “Hob, old friend, we’ve stopped the bleeding. But we need to get you to Master Samwise or to Master Meriadoc. You’ve been touched by an evil weapon and it is they who can cure such a wound.” At least, he hoped so.

Fredegar ordered Tom and two others to carry Hob back to the road. Tom would ride on to Brandy Hall for help. Fredegar returned to the prisoner. “Where did you get this blade?” he demanded. But the prisoner was in pain and surly, and would not answer the question directly. Keeping his rising impatience in check, Fredegar continued to ask questions and he gathered from the man’s snarled responses that the gang had been last in Bree. Fredegar pulled paper out of his pack and scribbled a note.

“Willy,” he said, turning to the remaining hobbit. “This matter can’t wait and I must leave at once. Finish the watch on the fords tonight and escort the prisoner back to Whitfurrows for the healers. Tell the Lieutenant I will be gone for several days at least. It seems that some of the Dark Lord’s favorite toys have been found again, though He and his Wraiths have been destroyed. I must discover the source. And send this message to the Master of Buckland.” Wrapping it carefully in a cloth, he placed the Morgul-blade in his pack, and stepped forth quickly into the night.

**The Inn at Bree**

The Common Room of the Prancing Pony was busy that night, as always. The locals sat together, talking loudly and laughing perhaps too loudly, while the many travellers who passed through Bree these days sat around the edge of the room in small groups, hunched over their plates and mugs. Some crude jokes at the expense of the strangers were offered by the locals, and the tension in the room was thick. Fredegar sat in a dark corner with a half-pint of ale untouched in front of him. He would have preferred a hot bath after three hard days of travel, but he was seeking a man.

When he arrived at the Inn, he had gone straight to the stables for a talk with his friend Nob, who knew all the doings of the village and the recent news in the region. While he and Nob together tended his tired pony, rubbing down her legs and filling the manger with a good helping of oats, he described the ruffian gang to Nob. “Aye, they were through here about eight days ago, right enough,” said Nob. “Come from the south. Didn’t have no real money, but paid for their suppers with gold trinkets. They’s been at least one more gang a-come up the Greenway and paid the same way since, just two days ago.” 

“I suppose I must go south, then, at least as far down the road as the way-meet to the Sarn Ford,” said Fredegar. Nob looked worried and lowered his voice. “That might not be a good idea, Master Fredegar. They’s been a good deal of talk about unnatural goings on--lights and sounds and such--coming from the barrows, sir. Something has stirred things up.” 

Later that evening, Barliman confirmed Nob’s news and told Fredegar that both gangs had met up with the same man, each time in a private room. “But he comes to Common Room almost every night, though he don’t stay in my Inn, if you please. If he is staying in the village, I can’t say where. He has a great black beard, like a dwarf, and an evil eye. But he is free with his money, as they say, and my Inn is open to all.”

The fire was dying down and the room had been slowly emptying for some time when the black-bearded stranger entered the Common Room. Fredegar leaned forward to see him in the firelight: a tall man, almost Ranger-tall he seemed, with a barrel chest and great strong arms. But he limped as entered the room, favoring his left leg which seemed stiff and unbending. He scanned the room and, noting a small knot of ragged strangers at a table, moved through the room to sit with them. They talked in low voices for only a few minutes, then the bearded man handed a packet to the leader of the gang. The leader opened the packet and held up, glittering in the firelight, gold chains and bracelets. The bearded man, evidently displeased, got up abruptly and headed toward the door. Quietly, Fredegar slipped out behind him and followed him into the night.

**On the Barrow-downs**

At the top of a rise, Fredegar reigned in his pony and gazed ahead. He had been riding down the Greenway south from Bree since before dawn, following the tracks of the bearded man on his great black horse. He had passed several parties camped by the side of the road, steering carefully around them at a distance. By now, the sun had just set in a great red splash across the western horizon and the first stars of evening were coming out in the eastern sky. Before him, in a shallow valley, he saw the largest camp of them all. There must have been more than a hundred men in the camp, but he could see no families, no children or livestock. Many of the men bore arms. It was a military camp, if somewhat ragged and disorderly. In the distance, he could see on the road the silhouette of the bearded man, still on horseback, surrounded by four or five men, probably captains of the troop. As he watched the bearded man left the road and spurred his horse onto a small track leading up into the hills on the right.

Fredegar dismounted and walked his pony carefully into the western hills, avoiding the camp. He followed the cover provided by low bushes and the lay of the land itself, aiming to strike the path taken by the bearded man about a mile from the Greenway. The horse tracks were still visible in the failing light when he led his pony onto the path and rode forward. It snaked westward through the hills, slowly rising. On the hill to the north, Fredegar saw the first barrow. Soon he could see barrows on both sides. He shivered and drew his cloak closer around him. He had no desire to meet the Barrow-wights as his friends had done.

The darkness deepened as he rode slowly on. Ahead, torches flared on a hilltop near the path. Fredegar dismounted and crept up the hillside. He wormed his way to the edge of the torchlight, covered by a stand of tall grass. He said nothing, but his eyes narrowed with disgust. It was a grave robbing: a dozen men worked in the torchlight, digging, breaking through the barrow walls, and rummaging through the interiors. Fredegar watched as bundles of bones and tattered rags were cast aside; great chests, glinting weapons, and many shining bits of gold and silver were laid out under the torches. This was the source of the ruffian’s trinkets, he thought. But there was no sign of the bearded man; Fredegar retreated down the slope and rode on.

He passed one more grave-robbing site and then, after an hour of riding in the dark with only a guess at the trail, he saw another light at the top of the next hill. But this was not the red and gold flicker of torchlight. It was a cold, blue light, welling and diminishing more like water than fire. Fredegar shivered again, but after a moment of indecision, he again carefully climbed the slope

As he peered over a great stone block, one of many that encircled the hilltop, he saw another barrow, intact, but with the great doors open and the cold light streaming out from the door. In the doorway, silhouetted in the light, stood the Barrow-wight, wrapped in dark grave rags, eyes gleaming. Fredegar shut his eyes and shuddered, then looked again. 

Facing the barrow-wight was the bearded man. He held his staff before him, as if it were a wizard’s staff. On his head, he wore a great helm of polished metal like the Numenorean helms of old and like those of the Guard of the Tower of Gondor, save that it was jet black. Fredegar’s skin crawled. He had heard often enough from Merry and Pippin about their encounter with the evil man known as the Mouth of Sauron. The old stories told of the Black Numenoreans, the men of Numenor who fell under the spell of the Dark Lord. Was this man, like the Mouth of Sauron, one of those?

As he watched, the bearded man raised his staff and fire blazed upward from its tip. The Barrow-wight seemed to retreat. At the mouth of the barrow, Fredegar could now see dozens of swords and knives laid out on the ground--all glowing with a pale, venomous light. These were Morgul-blades, and perhaps this barrow was the source. Here, the Witch-King, the Lord of Angmar long ago before the founding of the Shire, had cached a great store of his favorite things, the cursed creations of his fell artistry. Fredegar grinned mirthlessly--these were yet more “birthday presents” from the Dark Lord that were better off never found. He felt a radiating cold on his back and knew that the short Morgul sword he still carried in his pack was responding to the others. He could not tell if the Black Numenorean, as he now believed him to be, was bargaining with the wight, battling the wight for control over these weapons, or bending the wight to his will. He didn’t need to know; but he knew that those weapons would soon be in the hands of a small army of men that would invade his beloved Shire.

As he crept down the hill toward his pony, preoccupied with what he had seen, Fredegar slipped and fell. He rolled down the hill for some distance, coming up suddenly against a stone. He clung to it, a roughly worked pillar like an upthrust fist, fighting for his breath. After several minutes, when his heart had stopped beating so wildly, he stood up again, one hand on the pillar. At that moment, the ground beneath him gave way and he fell into a lightless underground chamber. 

Fredegar found himself lying on a bier, his face against the skull of a long-dead king or warrior. He scrambled up, entangled in the rags of rotten grave-cloth that still covered the dry bones. At the same time, a cold light, now bluish, now greenish, began to rise from all around him. He heard the hiss of a dry, lipless voice growing slowly louder. He closed his eyes--he knew his cousin’s stories and knew his deadly peril. He felt helpless, remembering his despair in the lightless cell in the Lockholes. No Tom Bombadil would come to rescue him and bring him back to the warmth and light. Light! The voice was growing closer--he determinedly ignored it as much as possible--and the greenish light was growing brighter. He stooped and felt in his pack for flint and steel. With shaking hands, he struck sparks into the graveclothes around him; the dry cloth quickly flared up and the flames spread. Winding some of the burning cloth around a leg bone and steeling himself for the worst, he turned to face the Barrow-wight. 

The voice of the wight had turned into an angry growl. Heedless of his feet, Fredegar kicked shreds of the burning cloth into further corners of chamber, where hangings caught and smoked. He could see only the eyes of the wight, eyes deep and cold and empty. He determinedly looked away. Fire burned in many parts of the chamber now, and Fredegar could see the hole in the roof through which he had fallen and now through which the smoke escaped. The wall was rough and he could climb it. He flung his makeshift torch at the Barrow-wight, hearing its angry shriek as he clambered up the stones and out into the night.

**The Old Forest**

In the early light of dawn, Fredegar staggered down the last slope of the downs, seeing the Old Forest before him and a little stream running down beside him into the forest. There was a path of white stones beside the stream. Fredegar sat down beside the stream to bathe his feet, burned again in the barrow, and clean the various burns and scrapes he had accumulated in his journey. He ate some bread and dried fruit from his pack, drank deeply from the stream, filling his water bottle.

He had to warn the Shire about the impending invasion, but his pony had been lost in the night and he could not afford the long walk around--his straight path lay ahead through the Old Forest. Fredegar was not the timid and inexperienced hobbit he had been when a member of the Conspiracy to help Frodo. But he had never entered the Old Forest and had never shaken his childhood fear of it. He understood that he could not hope to follow the changing paths to the other side of the Forest. The Withywindle was a path that could not be missed, however. That stream cut through the heart of the Old Forest from northeast to southwest, flowing out of the Old Forest into the Brandywine River at Haysend, the southern-most village of Buckland. 

So Fredegar took Tom Bombadil’s path along the Withywindle, and for most of the morning it was a pleasant walk, or would have been if his errand had not been so urgent. The soft grass comforted his sore feet and the sunshine warmed his sore muscles. He kept an eye out for the Old Man Willow and tried to recall the details of the stories that Merry and Pippin had told about him. There were many large, old willows along both banks of the stream, which gurgled and burbled in its winding bed, but none seemed either large enough or old enough to match the stories. Nevertheless, he stayed on the path, away from the river. 

In the early afternoon he again stopped to eat and drink the last of his supplies. As he hoisted his now rather empty pack, feeling the Morgul-blade in its wrappings, he heard a cry. It was a woman’s voice and there was fear in it. Without thought, he headed toward the cries, leaving the path to come near the little river itself. In a few minutes he stood on the bank. The last faint cry had appeared to come from across the river, but he was hesitant to wade in the dark brown waters, so filled with the twisted grey roots of willow trees. He peered forward and then called out himself, “Hallooo!” Nothing. A thin shadow seemed to pass over the sun. Fredegar looked up to see the great dangling branches of a huge willow. 

He attempted to step back, but his feet seemed to have gotten tangled in the willow roots and he fell on his back. He felt the roots dragging him feet first toward the trunk, where a great crack had opened. Only his hands and arms were free, but what could he do? Could he burn the tree--but when Sam had tried that, it had only made the tree angry. He had no axe--but he did have one weapon he could reach. Reaching over his head with both hands, he feverishly unfastened the flap of his pack and pulled the Morgul sword free. His legs were now inside the tree up to his shins. He slashed at the bark of the old willow with all his might and a shallow gash appeared. The tree gave a great shudder and lashed its branches, the ends whipping across his face. He tasted blood from the welts across his cheek; his knees were inside the tree now. The crack gaped wider. Fredegar thrust the the Morgul-blade deep, deep directly into the crack, up to the hilt. It stuck. A great keening wail rent the air and the entire tree convulsed, shuddered, and was still. Stunned for a moment, Fredegar lay back and carefully withdrew his feet one by one from the willow tree. Had he killed it? He had a sudden rush of regret as he scrambled back toward the path.

In the early evening, the hobbit wardens at the Hay Gate saw a dazed and stumbling hobbit, staggering with weariness and hurt, approach from under the eaves of the Old Forest. Several of the Haysend gatekeepers recognized him as Fredegar Bolger. They took him into the lodge house beside the gate and begged him to rest and have his wounds treated, but he would not until messengers had been sent out to Bucklebury and Tuckborough, requesting aid from the Master and the Thain. “They must send as many as can be mustered to the Sarn Ford. I will be there first.” 

**The Battle of the Fords**

At dawn, the hobbits of southern Buckland and the Marish across the Brandywine were startled from their beds--if they were not already up with farm chores--by the horn call of Buckland. “Fear! Fire! Foes! Awake!” The horn call sounded again and again, and was followed by riders on swift ponies, asking all who could bear arms to rally at Sarn Ford at the southeast corner of the Shire. 

The Sarn Ford, the only ford across the Brandywine River from the Bridge to the Sea, was the main portal for trade goods coming in and out of the Shire. It was also the most likely point for an invasion. Fredegar, using his authority as a Captain of the Bounders, had gathered all hobbits in the vicinity who could bear arms, some fifty or so, to defend the ford. Together with the dozen or so Bounders who were permanently stationed at the ford, they constituted the available defense.

The ford, a natural stone shelf over which the river flowed, had been augmented in the days of the North Kingdom by massive flagstones with a curb on the downstream side. The curb permitted even heavily laden wagons to cross the river without slipping sideways with the current. Sarn Ford was guarded by two gates. On the far shore, a small wooden stockade about twenty yards wide fronted the paved entrance to the ford. In the stockade wall were set two massive eight foot doors, normally open, but today were closed and barred with wooden beams. 

The second gate, a single structure of stout wood twelve feet wide, reinforced with iron, was set in a stone wall guarding the near shore. Behind the wall, which ran fifteen feet tall close to the shore for almost fifty yards, was a parapet, now manned with archers and lookouts. Behind the wall, the road from the ford ran up a steep causeway onto a higher embankment, where the trading houses and storerooms lined the road into the heart of the Shire.

Fredegar stood at the open gate on the far side of the ford, gazing ahead into the mist. The eastern sun was in the eyes of the defenders, but the river itself and the bottomlands around were covered in fog.He had sent two keen-eyed scouts ahead on swift ponies, hoping to spot (or hear) the marching army of men and give warning to the defenders. Fredegar had piled dry wood and barrels of pitch behind the wooden stockade walls. He knew they could not hope to hold the outer gates against the men. but firing the stockade walls would delay the invaders as well as remove a defensive barricade the enemy could use against them.

Fredegar seeing the sun rise above the mists in the east, turned to an old friend, Folco Boffin, standing next to him. He had not believed his luck to find Folco at the ford when he arrived with his hastily-assembled army. Folco, a childhood friend of Frodo’s as well as the other travellers, had been coordinating food deliveries for the many refugees housed temporarily in the Shire. Most of these temporary camps were in the area around Sarn Ford; Folco, whose family owned great grain fields in the North Farthing, had been deputized by the Thain and the Mayor to purchase foodstuffs and necessities for their Uninvited Guests, as the hobbits called them. Fredegar had immediately enlisted his help and named Folco his second-in-command. 

“How long before a message will reach Tuckborough?” Fredegar asked. “Four hours, by the fastest route” replied Folco. “Your message will reach Brandy Hall in about three hours. But we cannot expect an army to form instantly, and even at fast march they cannot be here before nightfall.”

“So today, we must hold them.” said Fredegar. 

The mist burned off in late morning, but there was still no sign of the Men. Fredegar began to doubt: could he have misinterpreted the situation? Perhaps the army was making for Bree, instead. He shook his head. The earlier crossing to the North had been a probe. The Shire had to be the goal of the invaders.

At noon the scouts rode back, reporting an army of perhaps six score men on the move, led by a captain on a black horse, a bearded man in black. They would arrive within the hour. At the same time, a cart drove in from the north with great bundles in the back. It was driven by a young hobbit in his tweens, in fact one of the sons of old Farmer Maggot. “My father sends his greetings,” said the young fellow, “and says that though he is too old to fight unless it is on his own land, he has managed to collect some war supplies from the neighborhood round that might be useful. There’s about five hundred hunting arrows, as well as bows and bowstrings, and a fair number of other odd ironmongery that t’would be useful in a fight.” Fredegar accepted these gifts gladly and thanked Maggot many times. He considered asking the younger Maggot to stay, who clearly was eager for the opportunity. But he looked at the young hobbit’s face and firmly sent him home with a quickly scribbled message for his father.

The ruffian army came into sight about two hours after noon. In addition to swords and shields, many had acquired chainmail or helms to improve their war-worthiness. At least a score of them bore gleaming swords. 

The hobbits fired many arrows from the stockade, but only a few of the ruffians fell. Fredegar ordered the retreat across the river and they fired the stockade. The fire seemed to discomfit the invaders; the winds blew the smoke across their ranks and they retreated several hundred yards. “We’ve stymied them,” said Folco, looking out from the parapet over the gate. “For a little while,” replied Fredegar.

Before the stockade had burned down to ashes, the ruffians brought forward several great wagons. Loaded heavily with stones, wagons were set free down the bank, smashing through the still burning remains of the gates, clearing a path down the middle of the blaze. The black captain was evidently impatient.

Before long, the ruffians had reached the ford itself and the battle began in earnest. The hobbit archers did great damage to the ruffian ranks as they rushed across with little order. But soon they reorganized themselves in groups with linked shields and were crossing the ford relatively unscathed. Soon, many of them were under the walls themselves and it was difficult and dangerous for the hobbit archers to lean over the parapet and find a mark to shoot at. Fredegar watched the leader as he sat on his horse on the opposite shore, heedless of arrows, directing his undisciplined troops with a general’s precision. This was a man that knew warfare. 

Fredegar also knew that the gate would fall soon, if nothing could be done to stop them. He looked back at the westering sun--far too soon for a hobbit company on foot to reach them. Already men with axes were hammering away that doors. 

Fredegar gathered about ten hobbits with swords and shields that had some idea how to use them. He led the small band around the northern end of the wall and down a narrow path between the wall and bank: too narrow for men, but not for hobbits. They charged into the men at the gate from the side. Fredegar’s spear passed through one of the ruffians. He had his sword out and was attacking the next ruffian before he knew it. Most of the men, surprised by the hobbit ambush, threw down their tools and weapons and fled back splashing across the ford. But one stood firm and he pointed a Morgul sword at the hobbits. The hobbits hesitated, halting their rush. There were loud shouts and cries behind the gate and Fredegar feared they would open the great doors to rush out and attempt a rescue. The black captain was already getting his men under control on the other side of the river.

So he attacked the man with the Morgul blade. They swung at each other and Fredegar’s blade passed under the man’s shield and deep into his bowels. At the same time, his arm was pierced by a needle of poisoned ice; the Morgul sword point was buried in his shoulder. He wrenched himself back, his arm numb, and fell to his knees. Darkness passed before his eyes and there was roaring in his ears, like the galloping of many hooves.

He looked up to see the doors swing wide and a phalanx of hobbit cavalry, led by Peregrin Took himself in the black and silver livery of the Tower of Guard, sweep through the gate and across the ford, driving the ruffian army before them. Then Fredegar swooned, falling forward into the mud.

**The Meeting at the Bridge**

King Elessar stood on the Brandywine Bridge in the sunshine, surrounded by his knights and by the fair ladies of his court, and greeted his friends after a long parting. He smiled: it was clear to him, as Gandalf had foretold, how much Merry, Pippin, and yes, especially Sam, had grown and matured. As dear as this reunion of old friends was, the King also understood that they had serious business as well. Two years after the battle of Sarn Ford, the news of which spread through the North and even to Minas Tirith, King Elessar had ridden north to address important things he had neglected while setting his kingdom in order in the South. 

First, he tasked Dunedain of the North to help the refugees, giving them authority to freely grant lands for settlement throughout Eriador and to provide food and tools to help them build their new homes. His knights hunted down the last of those who were ruffians and scoundrels. Finally, the King proclaimed the Shire was a Free Country under the protection of the Crown, and decreed that no man could enter it without leave of the inhabitants. At the Bridge, he shared a copy of the Proclamation with the Thain and the Mayor of the Shire.

“My friends,” said the King, “I left you to struggle both with the refugees and the ruffians without help. I am sorry and will attempt to make amends. But I would also say, especially to you three, that the Shire-folk have shown both great mercy and compassion and great resolution. I have learned from you in this matter.”

Later, as Samwise, the new Mayor of Michel Delving, introduced his daughter Elanor to Queen Arwen, and it was arranged that Elanor would serve as a handmaiden and companion to the Queen while the royal party remained in residence at Annuminas in the North, the King noticed a hobbit standing silently at one side. He was a lean, dark hobbit with a drawn face and a withered right arm. He wore his sword slung left-handed and on his cloak was the badge of Captain of the Bounders. 

King Elessar motioned him to him and spoke to him. “You are a hobbit after my own heart, Fredegar Bolger. I’ve heard the story of your dangerous journey alone, your resourcefulness and courage, and your enduring spirit.” Fredegar bowed to the King. “It is a little thing, compared to the quest of my cousin Frodo, and your own long journeys, my lord.” 

The King smiled, and in his mind he could hear Gandalf: “soft as butter as they can be, and yet sometimes as tough as old tree-roots.” This hobbit was made of stern stuff. For a moment, memories of days past clouded his eyes and he murmured softly:

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

The King continued, “I understand that you’ve left your old nickname Fatty back in the past. Perhaps you’d like to share one of mine, for if ever a hobbit reminded me of Strider of the Rangers, it is you. What do think, Strider of the Shire?”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This fan fiction was written by my father and I am posting it here at his request. He is concerned no one will like it because it is about Fatty Bolger, so please (all you Fatty Fanatics out there??) leave a comment and I will read it to him!


End file.
